Westbound Boarder

Hot sauce and snowboarding … sounds like the perfect day, right?  This past weekend, I went up to Mt. High to watch the 12th annual Cholula Triple Air competition (also put on in part by Monster Energy and Powder and Sun ride shop), featuring some of SoCal’s (and even beyond) top amateur talent.  The Chiloula Triple Air is a “modified big air” competition featuring three huge jumps instead of just one.  Competitors came all the way from Vermont, Colorado, and even Norway!  And $25,000 in prize money was more than enough prize money to motivate competitors to throw down their biggest air ever.  Some of these guys and gals competing were unreal!

Interestingly, Triple Air was held at Mt. High’s East resort this year, which I really liked, partly because the course was built near the bottom of the hill, allowing for good spectator viewing areas, and partly because East is rad this year!  You can take the main lift up and hit 10 tables in a row - yes, 10.  In fact, I may never go to West again this season.  The competition course set included 3 hits - a launch box or rail to choose from, a 50 foot step down, and a massive right hip.  The theme for the day, though, ended up being pretty much “Don’t fall, win some dough.”  It seemed like every rider fell after the second hit, and without having taken a run through the course to see for myself, it looked like the landing got pretty chopped up the latter part of the day which may have exasperated this.  Or maybe the riders were just going way bigger than they were used to.  Either way, only the top competitors were able to stick all three jumps, which likely became key in judging competitors on their ability and style.

In the men’s heat, rider Trevor Jacob ended up taking home the $10,000 in cash, beating out last year’s winner Danny Toumarkine by a slight margin.  In the women’s division, last year’s defending champ. Stacie Anderson from Lake Tahoe took home the title for the second year in a row.  Lars Ellington from Mt. Baldy took home the best trick title, wowing the judges and audience with his massive 1080s.

As much as I love watching snowboarders compete in events such as these, I have to say, I am always impressed watching free skiers perform as well.  They go so much bigger and can pull some of the coolest tricks I’ve ever seen!  It was especially fun to watch the skiiers in this competition, namely because they were going so much bigger than the snowboarders, especially on the hip.

Final Results

Open Mens

1st Trevor Jacob
2nd Daniel Toumarkine
3rd Tyler Anderson
4th Cory Wetstone
5th Brandon Concard

Open Women
1st Stacie Anderson
2nd Nirvana Ortanez
3rd Isabelle Lalive
4th Micki Slchta
5th Jamie Madrid

Open Skier
1st Lars Ellington
2nd Jeff Johnson
3rd Robby Burleson
4th Chase Vance
5th Charlie Ellington
6th Mike Gonzales

Best Trick
Lars Ellington

Pics from our drive up to Mountain High on Saturday… amazing.  Valuable lesson learned - never go up to the SoCal mountains the Saturday after 4 ft. of snow arrives.  But, I suppose the estimated 9,000 people at the resort and the 4 hour drive home (yes, we moved about 1.5 miles in an hour) was well worth it.

Allright folks, get ready for some sick conditions coming to the SoCal mountains this week.  It’s finally snowing!  And with rain in LA expected to continue throughout the week, this should be the El Nino storm we all have been hoping for.  Mt. High has already seen 3 inches of fresh pow at the peak, with the base receiving a mixture of snow and rain.  The snow level is expected to drop to 5,500 feet tonight, making for tons of fresh pow tomorrow and throughout the rest of the week.  Bear, on the other hand, (while the temperature is 38F at the moment) is expecting 8 - 16 inches tomorrow.

Photo by Peter Parra

After returning from an amazing week-long vacation in Vail, CO, you’d think I’d want to spend the weekend resting (and doing laundry), right?  Well, that was the plan, but apparently it didn’t last for long. When I received a text Friday night at 8pm from my snowboard friend Matty asking if I wanted to ride Saturday, how could I say no?  My fifth day up in one week?  I’m on a roll!

I haven’t been up to Mt. High yet this season, so I bought a six time pass (pretty sweet deal, btw) and left my house at 6:15 am (ouch) to meet Matty at our little meeting spot on the way up to the mountain, right off the 15 fwy.  A few cups of coffee and one beautiful sunrise later, I knew it was going to be a great day!

Admittedly, after spending four days riding in the Colorado Rockies, the 12 inch base and slushed-out snow at Mt. High seemed a bit unappealing at first (the snow started out very grainy), but once the sun came out and softened it up a bit, it turned out to be an awesome, very fun day.  Riding High is just a lot different than riding at bigger resorts, namely because Mt. High is basically one, huge park, and there’s really not much free terrain to ride.  But I love park riding, so spending eight hours in the terrain park is fine by me.

The jumps and jibs were perfect, and the sunny, spring-like weather was even more perfect.  One really cool thing about Mt. High is that you can check out their interactive park layout before you go (which I did) and see photos/videos of all the jibs.  There was a lot of variety, and a good mix of easy to advanced features (and a lot of them!)  For example, if you start at the top of Chair 4 in the West Resort and head toward Upper Chisolm, you can ride down and hit 11 tables and several rails before you reach the bottom.  We spent most the day riding this run, followed by a nice, long break for BBQ in the parking lot.  The park crew was setting up for the Gatorade Free Flow tour slopestyle event (which takes place today) in the morning, so by the afternoon the course was open and we finished with a few runs through that park before heading home.

All in all, awesome day!  Oh, and it ended with a stop at grandma’s for dinner and laundry, so don’t worry, I did get a few good hours of laundry time in as well.

Now, I’m headed to Newport for an afternoon of skimboarding and sushi … I love living in a state where you can go snowboarding one day and to the beach the next

That’s right - tomorrow, Mt. High will officially be the first mountain to open in Southern California.  It will be open to season pass holders only, so either get a season pass or head up the next day.

Operating hours this week and weekend: 9am to 5pm on Thursday, 8:30am to 10pm on Friday, 8am to 10pm on Saturday, and 8am to 4pm on Sunday.

Thanks El Nino for bringing us some early season snow!  Who’s up for a little “haunted” Halloween shred sesh?

Last week, Mt. High ski resort (and my local mountain) announced that it will be launching an iPhone application with a release date of November 15.  Before you read any further, I’d like to preface this post with a “disclaimer” - I don’t own an iPhone.  I’ve never even used one less a few quick app tutorials. (Yes, for me the free company blackberry is a little more enticing at the moment, but that’s not to say I’ll never make the switch).  Regardless, I am more impressed each day by the technology and capabilities that modern smart phones bring to the table.

After reading up on Mt. High’s application (without actually having the opportunity to test it, first), I think it sounds pretty cool.  Some of the features include:

• Current mountain information such as snow conditions and trail openings
• Ticket price information and the ability to purchase tickets right from your phone
• Vacation planning resources, such as information on lodging, lessons, and upcoming weather
• An optional Powder Alert, where you can sign up to receive e-mail or text message notifications on new snow, ticket deals, and upcoming events
• Access to GPS guided directions, automatic dialing features, Google maps, and more

The App is $1.99 and can be purchased via iTunes or mthigh.com.

Obviously, this application is targeted toward the younger demographic - also Mt. High’s largest group of visitors - but is designed to improve everyone’s on mountain experience.  With an increasing number of people using the iPhone and associated applications these days, launching this app was a very smart move on Mt. High’s part, and I hope to see more resorts follow suit down the road (not for my crackberry-obsessed sake, but for everyone else out there).

Still haven’t picked up your season pass?  If you live in SoCal, now’s the time to buy.  Mt. High is offering their season pass for $299 (less than the cost of five visits) and $179 for children ages 7 - 12, and the offer’s good through Oct. 31.  It also includes a few other perks, like a free Transworld subscription and 10% off non-sale retail merchandise.  Check out the deets here.

In other SoCal Season Pass news, you can also pick up one at Big Bear (though at nearly $700 a pop, you might want to consider how much you’d actually be going).

I’ve been somewhat putting off this post for quite some time due to a flurry of other fun events to write about, however, I’m finally getting to it!  About a month ago, I had the wonderful opportunity to try out and review Mt. High ski resort.  Being one of the only relatively close resorts to Los Angeles, I talk about Mt. High quite frequently in blog posts, so I jumped at the opportunity to visit and review the hill.  Man oh man, where to begin…

Mt. High is the closest mountain to Los Angeles, taking only about 1.5 hrs. to get there.  I was kind of bummed because when I originally mapquested directions, I noticed the resort was only a 45 minute drive from my Sherman Oaks apartment.  However, as I began my journey to the mountain - and got about 10 miles up Highway 2 - I noticed a sign that said the Wrightwood pass was closed.  Well, apparently, people used to be able to go this way, however, a bridge collapsed 3 years ago that was never replaced.  I guess it’s a lesson for me to check directions on resort Web sites and NOT on mapquest :-)  Anyway, minus the whole getting lost part, it probably took me about 1.5 hours to get up to the mountain (the back way - 134/210 to the 15) from the Valley, which is still pretty decent.

Now, as I was driving along the highway nearing Wrightwood, I was sitting there thinking, “there’s no way a resort is anywhere close to here!”  The roads were completely bare and there was no snow anywhere in sight.  Not to mention the fact that I was basically on a small Freeway!  Then, all of a sudden, on my left a ski resort appeared out of nowhere!  It was like one of those dreams where you’re trekking through a hot desert and all of a sudden your sand mirage turns into a mound of snow… OK, you get the point.  Needless to say, I was a bit skeptical of this strange, rather large mound of snow to my left; but hey, can’t complain!

The snow ended up being a lot better than I expected.  Although I’m used to the cooler weather at Mt. Hood, when the temperature at Hood is anything above 32 degrees it either rains or the snow is so sticky anytime past noon that its practically worthless.  Mt. High, on the other hand, was nothing of the sort.  It was about 40 degrees out and perfectly sunny (I sported my fleece all day because it was “too hot” to wear my jacket - aka, I forgot it) and the snow was actually decent.  I love spring skiing, and with spring skiing-like conditions all year round, Mt. High was made for me.

When I arrived, I parked at the lower lot because the main lot was already full, but it was only a 5-minute or so bus ride to the main lodge.  Mt. High is split into two completely separate resorts - the East Resort, which has a few chair lifts and freeride runs, and the West Resort, which is the snowboarders haven, and also considered the main resort.  I’ll talk about this one first, since its the first part I hit.

The East Resort of Mt. High really reminded me of a smaller version of Big Bear - it was basically one big park.  The entire hill.  The park, dubbed Faultline (check out the layout here; they’re on MySpace too!) was rad - it had rails and jibs I’ve never seen anywhere else!  I now see why pros come in nationwide to ride at this SoCal mountain.  The jumps were great too; it had a few different slopestyle parks, each one a different level.  It had a small one, great for beginners, two medium sized parks, and a gigantic one, where they hold many of their comps.  The one thing I didn’t like, though, was that (similar to Big Bear) the parks weren’t marked off from the rest of the hill.  There were so many times when I saw a beginner just sitting on the edge of a lip taking a quick break (really?!) or a reckless rider cut in mid park.  Despite this minor nuisance, though, I still had a blast (the East resort has a super fun atmosphere, with a lot of young, but not overly annoying, riders); so much so that I didn’t want to leave to go to the West Resort!

But I was SO glad I did.  Its funny, the two resorts are part of the same mountain, but carry completely different vibes.  While the East side is fun, crazy and crowded, the West side is relaxed and calm, and there really aren’t big crowds or long lines.  The runs are much longer (the West peak’s elevation is about 200 feet greater) and there are less people on the hill.  Though there wasn’t a wide variety of runs to choose from, they were the perfect steepness and it was fun to straightline the entire run from top to bottom.

The only couple drawbacks about Mt. High are a) It tends to get pretty crowded (I’ve heard you should either arrive early in the morning, about a half hour before the mountain opens, or after 2pm; and b) Well, its small.  To be completely honest, though, the size didn’t really bother me.  There are definitely days when I’m in the mood to freeride, scope out new tree runs, or build kickers in fresh pow, and on these days Mt. High wouldn’t be the best pick, but there are also days where I’d be perfectly happy spending 8 full hours in the park, and for these days Mt. High is perfect.  In fact, its home to probably one of the best parks I’ve ever ridden through.

Another thing that’s great about Mt. High is the number of fun events they have catered to the college-aged demographic.  For example, they have frequent concerts, events such as ‘College Night,’ competitions like ‘A Snowboard Contest,’ and a solid happy hour (dollar hot dogs!)  They are also very technically integrated, with fun programs like weekly podcasts riders can subscribe to so that people can continue to think snow even when they’re not on the slopes.

All in all, Mt. High’s a great time!  If you live in SoCaland are looking for a close weekend getaway, I’d give this one a three thumbs up.

And you know what that means - massive snow at the mountains!  Light snow flurries are expected to hit Mt. High and Bear all week through Saturday.

If you’re looking for an event to hit up this weekend, check out “A Snowboard Contest” presented by Active and Signal Sports Saturday at Mt. High; registration begins at 8am.  Additionally, Bear Mountain will be home to USASA’s boardercross competition on Sunday, March 8.  Great events + dank snow = awesome time at the mountain this weekend.

March is usually the snowiest month at California mountains?  I had no idea!  I thought for sure the season would be done by March 1.  (Thanks, Bear Blog, for that tid bit of info.)

Other news from SoCal…

• Bear Mountain’s Superpipe is currently under construction.
• Sick (and free) concert at Mt. High Friday the 27th - Shiny Toy Guns.
• The Active BroDown ShowDown, a slopestyle competition for amateur and pro riders, is coming up this Saturday at Bear Mountain.
• Later that night, the Hot Dawgz and Handrails Qualifier will take place also at Bear. The top two competitors will get an invitation to the Main Event in September.

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